


I Can't Be Like You

by dreamerhennessy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, based on dibs so i guess some spoilers for that since it just came out today, whiskey has a lot of issues with his own sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamerhennessy/pseuds/dreamerhennessy
Summary: “I can’t be like you.”Can’t. That was a deliberate choice. Not “I won’t be like you.” Or “I’m not like you.” I can’t be like you. Because he couldn’t be like Bitty.Because, as much as he still wanted to hide it, he was like Bitty.
Relationships: Connor "Whiskey" Whisk/Unnamed LAX Bro
Comments: 23
Kudos: 66





	I Can't Be Like You

“I can’t be like you.”

Can’t. That was a deliberate choice. Not “I  _ won’t _ be like you.” Or “I’m  _ not _ like you.” I can’t be like you. Because he  _ couldn’t _ be like Bitty. 

Because, as much as he still wanted to hide it, he was like Bitty.

Conner came to Samwell happily in the closet with his lovely girlfriend back home, with their weekly FaceTime dates in his dorm and holidays at home. But what he knew, even then, was that he felt nothing for her. She was a great person, and she was a great friend to him, but romance? He couldn’t. And that wasn’t fair to her. 

And that wasn’t fair to him either. 

And then he met a beautiful boy from the lacrosse team. Fuck. 

It was easy to pretend that this  _ part _ of him wasn’t real when there wasn’t a boy  _ right there _ in front of him, making his heart race and his palm sweat in a way no girl ever did. 

The first time he asked him out in the back room of Annie’s, he was defensive. “I’m on the hockey team.”

“I can see that.” He had forgotten he was wearing a Samwell Men’s Hockey t-shirt.

“I have a girlfriend. Fuck off,” he grumbled.

“Sorry,” he said, his hands up in defense. “Well, if you want to hang out anyways, here’s my number,” he said as he put his number in Conner’s phone.

The whole team knew after that that he liked to hang out with the LAX bros, he didn’t care about that. He didn’t care about the hazing and the jokes, about the way they’d bitch at him about it. He was allowed to have friends. This was a free country. 

Just as long as they didn’t know he was falling for one of them, he was okay. 

Conner knew that no one on the team would care if he was gay or not, they made that very clear with how they acted with Bitty. They were at one of the top LGBT schools in the country. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he wasn’t gay. Nope. He wasn’t gay. 

He still had his beautiful girlfriend, the one that would send him topless Snapchats that would make all his teammates jealous. (Not that they ever actually saw the pictures.) (They just knew about his hot girlfriend that he’s totally done stuff with. Yep.) His mom still sent him pictures from Pinterest of things she wanted at his wedding to his beautiful girlfriend. Where he was from, people just weren’t gay. So he wasn’t gay. Because he couldn’t be. 

The feelings he had for a certain red haired lacrosse player weren’t gay. They were friends. Good friends. Good friends sometimes had the thought of wanting to kiss them, right? The pure craving of his hands on his body and his lips on his, was totally platonic in every way. The fact that every time they hung out and he felt his hand on his lower back, or his gaze on him a little two long had him sweating was fine. The way he called his girlfriend for phone sex for the first time since he left for Samwell the day he saw him practicing, shirtless, was completely coincidental. 

One day, they did kiss. He’s not proud of it, but it happened. Alcohol, the pounding music of the party. Time doesn’t feel real at a rager, neither did space and life. He forgot about everything, forgot about the team and his family and his girlfriend back home who was writing an English paper on the homoeroticism of The Great Gatsby. All he saw was him. Conner wasn’t the one that started the kiss, but he didn’t push him away. He let him take the lead, and it was nothing like anything he had ever felt before. He had kissed girls before, but none of them had sparked like this. None of them had made him feel this warmth so deep in his gut that it was like an ember being fanned into a roaring fire. Scruff and broad shoulders and strong hands and it was all so much and not enough all at once. When he pulled away, Conner felt weightless. They were content in their little bubble, their own world away from the party, until he was pulled back by the eyes of his captain.

Oh fuck. 

“He’s just really fuckin’ strong, you know?” Conner said as he held the phone above him, watching her as she worked on her homework on FaceTime. “Dude pressed more than me, kinda wanted to kick his ass,” he said with a chuckle. “It was ‘swawesome.”

“Sounds a little gay.” What.

“What?” he asked.

“Just saying. You gushing about his muscles,” she said easily, not looking away from her paper.

“What the fuck? I’m not gay. Don’t you say that again,” he said, feeling defensive. The anxiety rising in his chest coming out in a rare show of aggravation outside of the ice. How could she insinuate that?

“Hey, chill. If you were gay, it’d be okay,” she assured carefully, finally looking over at him.

“Well I’m not, so you can just forget that.” 

The holidays rolled around, though, and that flew out the window. 

“You know what you said, about me being gay?” he started, her laying opposite him on the bed, her head by the footboard. 

“About that it’d be okay? Yeah. Why?”

“Well… I don’t know. Think I got feelings.”

“I know,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “Do you have feelings for me?”

“No,” Conner said, quicker than he had meant to. He didn’t know it’d be that easy to admit, he had barely ever admitted it to himself. But it was freeing in a way, telling her the truth.

“Do you want to break up?” 

Conner thought for a few minutes before he shook his head and shifted up on his elbows so he could look at her. She was so beautiful, so kind. Why couldn’t he love her? Why did all of this have to be so fucking complicated? “I don’t wanna break up.”

“Do you want to kiss him?”

“So fucking much,” he said, his voice small. Conner had never wanted anything more in his entire life. He wanted to lace their fingers together, he wanted to taste his lips. He wanted to know what his tanned skin felt under him. He wanted  _ him _ . 

“Then do it,” she finally said, blinking as she shifted to look at him as well. “You deserve to be happy, Conner. We can pretend while you figure things out.” She reached over and pushed back his hair, a fond smile on her face. She wasn’t mad. She was a little hurt, her high school sweetheart might’ve never felt anything for her. But it was better to find out now than after they were married with kids. 

“You’d be okay with that?” he asked, surprised. “I don’t want you to be sad and alone, that’s not fair. If I’m open to be with him, you can be with whoever you want too,” he assured. It was only fair. If he got to be with the guy he wanted, she could be free to be with any guy she wanted to too. He was already a bastard, it would be worse if on top of all that, he made her sit at home like some 1700s housewife, waiting on her husband to return from the new world. 

“Even if it’s a girl?” she asked.

Huh. “You like girls?” he asked, an eyebrow cocked. He didn’t expect that, at all. 

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve kinda wondered it lately,” she admitted. “If you get to go try out stuff with guys, might as well explore this… part of me I just recently realized,” she said with a shrug, clearly embarrassed. 

“Of course,” Conner said as he reached out to touch her hand, squeezing it gently. He laid back down and stared up at the ceiling again, and he was quiet for a long time. He had to tell her, she had to know. “Me and him, we kind of kissed already,” he finally admitted, his eyes trained ahead of him. 

“So… you cheated on me?” she asked as she watched him. “You kissed him before talking to me about it?”

“It was just a kiss, that’s it. But yeah. I’m so fucking sorry. We were at a party and it just happened.  _ He _ kissed  _ me _ .”

“But you kissed him back.”

“But I kissed him back.”

“I- I can’t believe you’d do that, Connor Whisk,” she said before she swallowed thickly. “I understand you’re going through a lot. I could even tell you were falling for him, and I was okay with that. But I didn’t know you’d do that. I was afraid you would, but I-... I didn’t know you’d actually do it,” she admitted, hurt. She had known she had lost him, and it was for the better. So she didn’t think hearing that would hurt, but part of it did.

“I’m so sorry. I know nothing I can do can make up for that. But I’ll do anything.”

“We’re only together for appearances now anyways, right? I guess it really shouldn’t matter,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest. “It just sucks to hear. Wouldn’t you be upset if I told you I kissed someone?” 

“Heartbroken,” he admitted, finally sneaking a glance at her. “What I did was inexcusable. And I don’t ever expect you to forgive me for it, even if we’re not together anymore.” 

“Don’t you dare hide anything from me ever again.”

“I promise.”

When Conner got back from the break, the first place he went was the LAX haus. He went in and went up to his bedroom, rapping on the door quickly. He needed in, he needed to see him. The second the door was open, his arms were around his shoulders and his lips were on his. 

They kissed. They kissed and they kissed and they kissed until Conner was breathless and he had him pressed up against the wall. “No one can know,” he whispered, his hands in his hair. 

“That’s okay,” he assured, his lips back on his before he could reply. 

He was falling in love, and it had to stay a secret. 

He couldn’t be like Bitty. He couldn’t be open and out and flaunting his boyfriend around.

He couldn’t be happy. 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy, he just couldn’t be  _ happy _ . 

He was already a pretty private person, there was an air of mystery around him that people seemed to love. So that part wasn’t a problem. The problem was the parts of him that he was ashamed to hide. The parts that he had to bring to the surface that he’d rather put away.

He still had a girlfriend, he told everyone that. Even Bitty. Bitty, who was an inspiration to queer athletes everywhere. Bitty, who fought homophobia first hand and still came out smiling and winning in the end. Bitty, who had an NHL boyfriend and they happily showed it off wherever they went. He couldn’t even tell that Bitty that he was in a relationship with a guy. He couldn’t let that Bitty know that in his room he’d be keeping up the tradition of having a too big guy crammed in that tiny little bed with him. He couldn’t tell that Bitty that he rarely slept in his dorm anymore, that instead he was sleeping just right on the same street as the haus but just at a different sports team’s place.

He still had to be ashamed. 

He had chosen his words carefully though, when he said can’t. He hoped Bitty could still read between the lines, even if he couldn’t say it outright. 

He couldn’t be Bitty. 

Not yet anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> i haven't posted a fic on here since 2018 fhudisfhudsi and the last one was also check please, wow ! well i hope y'all liked my emo hours over whiskey
> 
> i take requests on tumblr @ dreamerhennessy


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